


Deck the Halls

by Phoebe_Hunter



Category: Amelia Peabody - Elizabeth Peters
Genre: Christmas, Flirting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2191857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Hunter/pseuds/Phoebe_Hunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Edward Washington's Christmases get a lot more interesting after he meets a certain Master Criminal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deck the Halls

**Author's Note:**

> So, I started writing these at Christmas time and managed to fail at finishing them until now. I didn't even get them done for Christmas-in-July. Ah well. 
> 
> These are (as far as I'm aware) canon compliant (though don't ask me exactly where they fit) and they slot in with _Smoke and Mirror_. The portrait referred to isn't the one that Sethos eventually steals from Ramses and Nefret. And the reference in the fourth drabble is to _bruises_ , nothing else, get your minds out of the gutter. :p 
> 
> Don't ask me what happened with the last one. That was all Edward. Sethos provoked him. What was a girl to do? *throws hands up helplessly* 
> 
> ~~Also, come on, who doesn't want to see someone turn the tables on Sethos?~~

_Deck the halls with boughs of holly_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_‘Tis the season too be jolly_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

 

Sir Edward had never been particularly fond of family Christmases. His father eyed him disapprovingly over the pudding, his mother made pointed remarks about grandchildren and his wealthier relations luxuriated in their superior circumstances. The food, though superb, couldn't compensate for the company. 

Yes, he'd had a few miserable Christmases. But never one quite as damp. He dashed water from his eyes and hunkered down lower on the rocky outcrop. There was a stick poking painfully into his lower abdomen and the edge of his makeshift shelter was sending a stream of freezing water to pool uncomfortably beneath his right knee. 

'Merry bloody Christmas,' he murmured, hoping to all hell that the bunch of miscreants gathered in the hut he was watching would conclude whatever sordid arrangements they were making so he could leave before he forgot what being _dry_ felt like. 

The rain hardened. He shifted, trying to dislodge the stick, and managed to jab himself hard in the stomach. He estimated he'd been there for about two hours, but it felt like two days. If the assignment hadn't been so important he'd have been tempted to cut his losses and leave. Duty, he thought, kept him nobly in position. Duty and the fact that if he was spotted he would undoubtedly meet a distasteful end. 

The men he'd been waiting for emerged several minutes later, ducking out and scurrying for cover in the neighbouring houses. The bulk of one of them was unmistakeable. He sighed, partly in aggravation, partly in relief. He would have hated to have contracted pneumonia for nought. 

He managed the return journey to his hotel room in record time. He'd bathed and settled into his favourite chair with a good glass of whisky before he noticed the slip of paper folded on his desk. The hand was unmistakeable. 

**Merry Christmas.**

 His employer, he decided, had a deuced strange sense of humour. 

 -

ii.

_Don we now our gay apparel_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_Troll the ancient Yuletide carol_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

 -

'…and a partridge in a pear tree,' he murmured under his breath. The branch he was roosting on was damned uncomfortable. At least it seemed solid, he supposed. And it wasn't raining. Yet.

It wasn't the worst Christmas he'd ever had. Not quite. But it was the third year in a row his esteemed employer had sent him off on some sort of uncomfortable errand right when he should have been eating turkey and hobnobbing with beautiful women in festive moods. He examined his watch and concluded that, with any luck, he might manage to wrap things up in time to spend a few hours luxuriating in Christmas indulgence. 

Then again, he thought several hours later, as he clambered down from his perch, he'd never been particularly lucky. His numb foot slipped and he descended the final few feet significantly faster than he'd intended, landing in a seated position. 

'Long day?'

Edward looked up into the amused face of his employer. Sethos was impeccably dressed in evening kit and the very picture of a moneyed American tourist. He offered Edward a hand. 

'You shouldn't be here, sir,' Edward said, taking the hand and getting to his feet. 

' _Au contraire._ I will be late for dinner and explain that I became lost and stumbled into one of the less than salubrious areas of Cairo. Everyone will be delighted. Perhaps I'll say you tried to rob me.'  

Edward started to brush himself off and then gave it up as a bad job. Sethos looked him up and down, the corners of his mouth quirking up. ‘There’s no danger of anyone recognising you, anyway.’

That Edward could believe.

By the time he made it back to his hotel room all thoughts of revelry had vanished. Gainful employment was wreaking havoc with his reputation. He hadn’t flirted outrageously with someone inappropriate or caused any sort of scandal or sensation in _months_.

There was a roaring fire and a tray waiting for him in his room. The smell of roast turkey and plum pudding hung rich in the air. There was no note. There didn’t need to be.

Gainful employment, he decided, had its advantages.

 -

iii. 

_See the blazing Yule before us_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_Strike the harp and join the chorus_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

 -

To be shot once could be regarded as misfortune. To be shot twice, Edward thought, began to look a lot like carelessness. The thought startled him into a bark of laughter.

'I'm terribly glad you're amused,' Sethos gasped. He was bleeding all over Edward's favourite suit. 

Edward would have replied, but the effort of supporting the larger man robbed him of his breath. The burst of mirth was giving way quickly to concern. He couldn't just haul Eqypt's master of illegal antiquities through the foyer of Shepheard's and up to his rooms. With his luck, he'd burst into the lobby just as Mrs Amelia Emerson was crossing it.

'Left,' Sethos gasped. 

'Shepheard's is…' 

'Left.'

Edward turned into a decidedly unprepossessing alleyway, sloshing through several large puddles. 

'There.' Sethos winced as he raised his arm to point to a nondescript brown door, firmly bolted. 'Breast pocket.' 

Extracting the key from Sethos' pocket without jostling his wound required dexterity Edward hadn't known he'd possessed.  Sethos celebrated his success by passing out. 

Tending to Sethos took the best part of two hours and it was only when Edward collapsed, exhausted, into a chair beside the bed that he had the opportunity to take stock of his surroundings. The sparseness of the room did not detract from the elegance of the furniture or the quality of the art adorning the walls. It was the painting over the mantlepiece that drew his eye. The defiant grey eyes and determined chin certainly bore a striking resemblance to…

His eyes turned to the form on the bed. He'd removed Sethos' fake beard and mustache in order to dress the long cut on his cheek, and he'd taken the precaution of removing the cheek pads so his employer wouldn't choke to death on one of them.  It was the first time, he realised with an odd jolt somewhere in the vicinity of his ribs, he'd seen the other man's face undisguised. 

Sethos' dark hair made his chalky pallor all the more pronounced. In the light of the lamp he looked very like…

'I'm seeing Emersons everywhere,' Edward murmured. 'How disturbing.' It was his last coherent thought for some time. The weariness which had pursued him over the previous two, sleepless nights had finally caught him up. 

'Well, I suppose I'll have to kill you or promote you.' Sethos' voice snapped Edward out of his doze. He shook his foggy head and blinked at his employer. Sethos was sitting up in the bed, a hint of colour back in his cheeks, regarding the discarded facial accoutrements with some chagrin. 'Now that you have seen me _en deshabille_.' 

'I disarranged you only as much as was necessary, I assure you.' 

Sethos chuckled. 'I'm quite certain.' He pushed his sweat-damp hair back from his forehead. 'I'd hate to have in bandied about on the street that I'm human after all.' He reached for the glass of water on the bedside table and the sheet slipped, revealing several hands-widths of muscular torso and two neat dressings. 

Edward cleared his throat. 'You should know, sir, that I dispatched a messenger to my solicitor with a sealed note to be delivered to Professor Emerson upon the news of my death. A note explaining to Professor Emerson that you have a picture of his wife above the mantelpiece in your bedroom.'

Sethos blinked at him. 'A promotion it is.' 

-

iv.

_Follow me in merry measure_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_While I tell of Yuletide trasure_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

 -

'Well, this is a surprise.' 

 That was certainly one way to put it. Edward's head felt as though Professor Emerson was excavating in it. The light flooding through the windows made him want to retreat back under the covers. He would have, but there was a warm body beside him in the bed and he couldn't remember how it had gotten there.  

 Sethos was propped up on one elbow, his hair a tousled mess, regarding Edward with quizzical amusement. The covers had slipped to reveal a broad expanse of muscled chest. _No shirt,_ Edward thought.  He wondered whether he could surreptitiously check whether Sethos was wearing any trousers without the other man noticing. Probably not, he decided. 

He was, for his own part, fairly decently clad, as far as he could tell. His shirt seemed to have been unbuttoned but his trousers were still on. Always a good sign. He didn’t _feel_ very debauched, but it would have been a miracle if he’d been able to feel anything other than cursed ill.

'Indeed,' he agreed. 

Sethos rolled out of bed. He was wearing trousers. And his boots. The muscles in his back shifted as he stretched and Edward glanced away, mouth suddenly dry. Mistletoe, he remembered. There had definitely been mistletoe. And a bottle of whisky. And…his eyes lingered on Sethos' neck. He had a sudden, vivid recollection of fastening his mouth over Sethos’ pulse point, the other man’s hands buried deep in his hair. He choked on air.

‘All right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he managed.

'It's fortunate you came in through the window or we'd have the gossip mongers twittering,' Sethos observed. He reached down to pick up an empty bottle and set it on the bedside table. ‘I imagine an exit the same way won’t be possible until after nightfall.’

Even if it had been, Edward suspected that attempting any acrobatics in his present state would have been a perilously bad idea.

Sethos completed his ablutions in the bath chamber, humming cheerfully. Not for the first time Edward wondered whether some of the rumours might be true. It shouldn’t have been humanly possible for someone to drink so much and emerge the next morning entirely unscathed.

‘Enjoy your day, sir,’ he said. Admittedly somewhat acerbically.

Sethos turned in the doorway, a picture of elegance _a la mode_ in his well-cut tweeds _._ ‘Thankyou,’ he said. 'Oh, and Edward?' 

'Yes sir?' 

'You have something…' Sethos brushed a finger against the side of his neck to demonstrate. There was a glint in his eyes that made Edward extremely nervous. The door clicked shut behind him and Edward slumped back against the pillows.

Some hours later, feeling a good deal less sick and a great deal more famished, he made his way into the bath chamber.

As it turned out, _something_ was an understatement.

 -

v.

_Fast away the old year passes_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_Hail the new, ye lads and lasses_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_-_

Edward considered himself a tolerant man. But even he had his limits. Sethos might have been the master criminal but he, Sir Edward Washington, was the most accomplished flirt in Egypt. And he was not going to cede that title willingly or easily.

Sethos was flirting with him _outrageously_. In private and in public, in a variety of disguises, and, perhaps most memorably, while dressed as a large and formidable middle-aged matron. Sethos found every possible excuse to touch him; a hand on his arm, a brush of fingers across the back of his neck, an affectionate arm around his shoulders. He watched Edward with a knowing glint in his shifting eyes and a smile touching the corners of his lips.

It was driving Edward to distraction.

He’d played the game before, of course; fuelled the slow burn of desire with covert glances and long looks. But he’d never allowed anyone to push him so off balance, never lost control. This was not going to be the first time.

Christmas at Shepheard’s was always a sumptuous affair. Sethos was, of course, in disguise, and Edward managed to contrive to get them seated together, amidst a group of young gentleman whose holiday spirits kept the wine flowing and the conversation light.

He made his move after the soup course. He let his fingers brush the side of Sethos’ knee, light enough to be accidental. Sethos gave him a quick look and he did his best to look benign.

 By the end of the pudding, Edward could see Sethos’ control starting to slip. Edward excused himself and joined the dancing. He never lacked partners, and the festivities had put everyone in a convivial frame of mind. He made sure he gave Sethos an excellent view of each dance, made sure he met the other man’s eyes as he slid his hand down to the waist of a particularly pretty young widow. He was rewarded by a slight tightening in Sethos’ jaw.

He released his partner with a courtly bow and delivered her into the arms of another admirer before making his way towards the Moorish Hall. He found a place in the shadows and reclined against a pillar, waiting.

‘Edward?’

 He stepped out of the shadows. Sethos looked as coolly amused as ever, but there was a tension in his stance and something new in his eyes. Sethos reached out, placing one hand on the pillar next to Edward’s head, pinning him against the pillar.

 ‘Is this wise?’ Sethos asked, conversationally. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game.’

 ‘Am I?’

 Sethos looked at him for a long moment, his lips quirking into a smile, and his eyes dropped to Edward’s lips. Edward raised one eyebrow in a challenge.

Several long, _scintillating_ minutes later Edward pulled back to admire his handiwork, conscious of the need to assert control before desire overcame his rational faculties. A success, all in all. Sethos’ lips were swollen and his clothing was in total disarray. His hair was a tousled mess and his breathing was ragged. He looked utterly debauched and utterly delightful and it took all the strength Edward had to straighten his cravat and turn away.

“Merry Christmas, sir."

No reply was forthcoming. 

_-_

_Sing we joyous, all together_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_

_Heedless of the wind and weather_

_Fa la la la la, la la la la_


End file.
